own all the remaining sanctions for her
particular type of social order--Confucianistic feudalism. The whole
nation was eager to know the political systems of the West. So long as
the Shinto ideal of nationalism was not interfered with, the nation
was free to adopt any new social order. Japan's political and
commercial intercourse being with England and America, the social
order of the Anglo-Saxon had the greatest influence on the Japanese
mind. Japan accordingly has become predominantly Anglo-Saxon in its
social ideas. Much has been made of the fact that the new social order
has come in so easily; that the people have gained rights without
fighting for them; and this has been attributed to the peculiarity of
Japanese human nature. This is an error. The real reason for the ease
with which the individualistic Anglo-Saxon social order has been
introduced has been the collapse of the sanctions for the Confucian
order. No one had any ground of duty on which to stand and fight. The
national mind was open to any newcomer that might have appeared. I am
referring, of course, to the thinking classes. All the rest,
accustomed to submissive obedience, never thought of any other course
than to accept the will of superiors.

Furthermore, the new social order in one important respect fell in
with and helped to re-establish the old Shinto ideal, that, namely, of
nationalism. In the treaty negotiations, the West would deal with no
intermediaries, only with the responsible national head. Western
ideals, too, demanded a strong national unity. In this respect, then,
the foreign ideals and foreign social order were powerful influences
in building up the new patriotism, in re-enforcing the old Shinto
social sanctions.

Thus has Japan come to the parting of the ways. What Japan needs
to-day is a religion satisfying the intellect as to its world-view,
and thus justifying the sanctions it holds out. These must be neither
exclusively communal, like those of Shinto, nor exclusively
individual, like those of Buddhism. While maintaining at their full
value the sanctions for the social life, it must add thereto the
sanctions for the individual. It must not look upon the individual as
a being whose salvation depends on his being isolated from, taken out
of the community, as Buddhism did and does, nor yet as a mere fraction
of the community, as Confucianism did, but as a complete, imperishable
unit of infinite worth, necessarily living a double lif